


What Students Teach

by mt_reade



Series: Sanders Sides Short Stories! [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, I just wanted to write cute kid sides, Multi, No romance in this one, Other, The sides are kids, cause they're kiddos, except Thomas cause he's a teacher, just happiness really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mt_reade/pseuds/mt_reade
Summary: Hello! My name is Thomas Sanders, and I just finished my first year as a teacher.I taught a grade one class this year, at a relatively small school. I’ve known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was young, and babysat for the first time. I just love kids so much, and I remembered how much my teachers had an influence on me growing up. I wanted to be able to do that for others. I’ve known for a long time that teaching is the right job for me.But, what I didn’t know, is that the teaching goes both ways, and the lessons that my students have taught me this year are more valuable than any of the things that I taught them. I’m writing this now to share with anyone who reads this, just precious few of the things that my students teach me.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil & Creativity | Roman & Logic | Logan & Morality | Patton & Thomas Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Deceit Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Logic | Logan Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Morality | Patton Sanders & Thomas Sanders, Thomas Sanders & Thomas Sanders (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Sanders Sides Short Stories! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721833
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48





	What Students Teach

**Author's Note:**

> This short story was originally written to be a part of the "Choose Wisely" - Choose Your Own Adventure style story on Wattpad. I highly recommend that you read it, it was a huge project that was collaborated on by so many amazing Sanders Sides authors, and this is only one contribution to that book. I'd love it if you all could go check out that book, if you want to read some pretty nifty writing and also get to choose your own adventure in a Sanders Sides story!

_ Hello! My name is Thomas Sanders, and I just finished my first year as a teacher. I taught a grade one class this year, at a relatively small school. I’ve known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was young, and babysat for the first time. I just love kids so much, and I remembered how much my teachers had an influence on me growing up. I wanted to be able to do that for others. I’ve known for a long time that teaching is the right job for me. But, what I didn’t know, is that the teaching goes both ways, and the lessons that my students have taught me this year are more valuable than any of the things that I taught them. I’m writing this now to share with anyone who reads this, just precious few of the things that my students teach me. _

_ 1: Anything can be fun, if you sprinkle in some humour and play. _

I would bet a lot of money that if I were to walk up to a random stranger on the street and ask: “Excuse me, but would you mind telling me what the most boring class in school was?” That they’d say math.

Am I wrong? I don’t think so.

I was seeing the effects of standing at the front of the room and lecturing about how to add numbers for myself, when I looked out over the heads of the students in my classroom. Most of them were almost falling off of their chairs and drawling their heads with boredom. Honestly, I was bored myself with this lesson. Usually I was able to find some creative, fun way to teach the class. But, with this lesson, and the short amount of time we had before report cards were due… I just had to go old-school with it. 

“So, if I were to have six oranges, and then pick up seven apples, what would I have then?” I asked, turning away from the white board and scouting for hands.

There was one hand that shot up immediately, and I didn’t even have to look to know whose it was.

“Does anyone  _ besides  _ Logan want to try?” I asked. Logan always was the first (and sometimes only) one with his hand up, and the last one with his hand down. But, I’ll talk more about him later. 

After a moment or two, another hand made its way into the air, followed by a wide, toothy grin from the person who it belonged to. I smiled gratefully. “Yes, Patton?”

Patton put down his hand, and I heard Logan groan a little as he dropped his own hand on the other side of the room. Patton pushed up the glasses that almost always were slipping down his nose, and his eyes sparkled. 

“Big hands.” He said.

The class was silent for a moment, before all of the kids (except Logan) broke out into laughter. Echoes of “Good one, Pat.” and “Oh! I get it!” bounced around the room. I found myself chuckling a little as the joke dawned on me. 

“That was a good one, Patton.” I said. “But, could you tell me what the  _ number  _ is?”

“Oh uh…” Patton thought for a minute, counting on his fingers a couple of times. “Thirteen?”

I nodded. “Good!” I turned around and wrote “13” on the board. 

I moved on to subtraction slowly after, and something similar happened. “What’s the difference of eight and zero?” I asked, using the new word that I’d taught them. 

Logan put up his hand, and was followed shortly by Patton, who sat politely in his chair with a small smile playing at his lips. People looked toward him, and began muttering under their breath and pointing to Patton, trying to get me to pick him. 

“Patton?” I called on him.

Patton put his hand down, and looked rather pleased with himself. “A belt around their middle.” He said calmly. 

There was no moment of silence this time. The class burst out into giggles and groans. “You sound like my dad!” One kid said. 

After that, everyone started paying much more attention. Each of them raising their hands more and more, trying to get out the jokes that they’d thought of. After I called on them, and they made their joke, I was able to get them to take a shot at the answer. 

At the end of the year, when I asked students about their favourite memories, I was surprised at just how many of them brought up that math class. Humour was the thing had made that boring class into a fond memory and bonding moment for everyone in the room. Fun had made all the difference. 

  
  


_ 2: It’s important to listen. _

Logan (see, I told you that I’d talk about him) was one of the most calm, cool, and collected kids that I had in my classroom by far, if not  _ the most _ . He wasn’t really one for showing too much emotion, and seemed to keep this constant tranquility and neutralness about him. He was also incredibly bright. But, Logan was the opposite of quiet. He jabbered on endlessly about his thoughts on every possible thing that he could talk about. His voice was basically a constant in my room, and all of us (the students and myself) had gotten really good at tuning him out when we needed to focus. 

Once, while we were having free time, something happened. No one saw exactly what it was that had gone wrong, but by the time I realized that something was amiss, Logan was on the ground and in tears. He was curled in on himself with his knees pulled up to his chest. He had his hands over the top of his head like they told you to do in those airplane safety manuals, and was rocking back and forth a little. I rushed up to Logan, followed by a quick assembling concerned crowd of kids. 

I honestly had no idea what to do. Logan hardly even showed enough emotion to crack a small smile, never mind have a full breakdown on the carpet. I crossed over to him, and knelt down beside him. 

“Logan?” I said gently. “What’s going on?”

Patton burst out from the group of kids, and threw his arms around the crying boy. “Shhh, Logan, it’s okay! Why are you crying?”

Logan tucked his head between his knees, and let out a choked sob. I put my hand on Logan back, and rubbed it supportively. I asked, “Do you want to come talk with me in the hall?” Because that was Teaching 101. The other kids started asking if he was okay, and coming closer, offering him hugs. 

“Guys!” A voice called out from the back of the group. “All of you, stop!”

We all collectively froze, before a boy pushed his way through to the front of the group. It was a boy named Virgil.

Now, Virgil was one of the quietest kids that I had ever met. He hardly spoke to anyone, and preferred to keep to himself. He was really, really shy, and didn’t even like speaking to me if he didn’t have to. He’d get all nervous, and would rock back and forth on his heels silently. So, the fact that he had shouted over all of us caught me by surprise. I let him grab my arm and pull me away from Logan, and the other kids retreated. 

“Don’t you remember?” Virgil asked, looking around at all of us. “Logan doesn’t  _ like  _ hugs.”

Virgil then fished around in the pocket of his purple hoodie, and pulled out one of those black fidget cubes. The ones with the buttons and dials and things. He turned to Logan, and crouched down beside him. “Here, would you like to borrow this?” He offered, his voice now as quiet as a whisper.

Logan slowly raised his head, and he pushed up his glasses. His bottom lip trembled slightly, and he looked between Virgil and the cube a couple of times, before nodding. He took the cube hesitantly, and began to play with it. The other kids dissipated, moving back to their activities. But I stayed, and watched Logan calm down gradually. 

Eventually, Logan wiped the last of his tears from his face, and handed the cube back to its owner, who’d stayed sitting silently beside him the whole time. “Thank you, Virgil.” Logan said, voice weak. Virgil smiled and said, “You’re welcome.” And tucked the cube into his pocket, before standing up and helping Logan do the same. 

Later, I asked Virgil how he’d known that that would help Logan feel better. He explained that, when the class had been working on a crayon portrait of their families, that Logan had said that he wasn’t drawing him and his parents holding hands because he didn’t like people touching him and giving him hugs. He preferred puzzles and things instead. 

I remembered that project. We’d all sat in a circle and worked on the drawings side by side. But, apparently, only Virgil had been paying any attention to what Logan had been saying. 

A seven-year-old knew how to help one of my students better than I did, all because he’d listened to him. 

_ 3: Everyone does things differently, and that’s okay! _

Every class has it’s trouble makers. I knew that going in. I was prepared to have to deal with some kids that were a little bit more… difficult to deal with than others. However, this kid, Remus, was way more of a handful than I’d ever expected. 

He could not sit still for the life of him, he never seemed to pay attention to a word I was saying, and he was always distracting the kids around him. 

We were at the carpet, and I was giving a lesson on the planets of the solar system. Remus had started rocking back and forth on his square, and fidgeting obnoxiously. He inevitably got up, and started walking around the classroom. 

“Remus, where do you think you’re going?” I asked, annoyed that I was going to have to address this issue  _ yet again _ .

“Nowhere.” He said, putting out his hands and walking heel-to-toe like he was on a tightrope. “Just walking around.”

“Well you can’t walk around right now.” I said, trying to be as patient as I could. “You can walk around at recess. Right now, you need to come sit quietly and pay attention. We’re learning.”

“I  _ am  _ learning.” Remus said firmly, bouncing a little on the spot. 

“You can’t learn if you aren’t paying attention and listening.” My tone was threatening to become more harsh. 

“Remus!” Roman, Remus’ twin brother, called out from his place on the carpet. “Come sit down!”

“Why?” Remus turned to his brother.

“Because Mr. Sanders told you to!” Roman declared. 

“It’s okay, Roman. Thank you.” I said quickly, because I didn’t want a fight to break out. Those two used to bicker insensibly. 

After trying to get Remus to sit down for a few minutes, and him clearing approaching full on tantrum, I knew that I couldn’t argue with him any more or all hell would break loose. So, I eventually gave up, telling him that I would teach the  _ rest _ of the class, and I’d be calling his mother later. 

What I learned afterward, was that Remus  _ was  _ learning, just as he said. He scored the highest grade in the entire class on our planets unit. I’d stopped fighting him, and let him move around and walk about the classroom because I was just too fed up to deal with it anymore. But, by doing that, I’d unknowingly allowed him to access the way that he learned best. Through movement. After that, I got Remus a special bouncy pillow called a “Wiggle Seat” that allowed him to move around in his chair. He learned in a different way than everyone else in my class, but after I provided him with those tools, he excelled. His process was different, but his product was as brilliant as any of his classmates’. That was perfectly okay with me. 

_ 4: We shouldn’t waste today by waiting for tomorrow. _

In my class, we had this thing called a W.O.W. block. A period of time that the students had to “Work on Work”, and were able to use it to catch up and work on any school work that they were behind on, while I was in the room to help them. This mostly included homework, or personal one-on-one time with me if I felt that they needed it.

One day, while we were doing having one of those W.O.W. blocks, I noticed that Logan wasn’t doing school work. He was doing  _ work  _ alright, but not school work. He had his nose buried inside a non-fiction book about the American Revolution, that was written for a student at a fifth grade reading level. 

Now, Logan was clearly a very bright kid. He spoke with the language of a junior-high student, and had always very quickly caught on to everything that I taught him. He even wore a tie to school most days, as a  _ six-year-old. _

I crossed over to him, and tapped him on the shoulder. “Logan, this time is for you to work on school work.”

Logan looked up at me, and pushed up his glasses. “But Mr. Sanders, I already  _ get  _ all of the work that we’re doing in class.”

“That doesn’t mean that you don’t need to do the work.” I said. “Besides, what you’re learning in that book is stuff that you won’t need to know for a few years.” I tried to reason with him. The American Revolution wasn’t something that he was supposed to tackle in social studies for many years. He really didn’t need to be learning it now. 

Logan looked confused. “Well, why can’t I just learn it now instead?”

This kid was incredibly stubborn. “Well, you’ll learn about it later on in life, and you can do all the reading you want about it then. It’s something to look forward to!” I smiled down at him.

“But aren’t I living life right now?”

“Well… yes.” I said, unsure of where he was going with this. 

“Well, why shouldn’t I just learn it at this point in life, then? That means that I can do something  _ different  _ later on, and not waste right now by waiting for later to get here.” He said, so incredibly matter of factly, that I knew that he had no idea how philosophical that statement was. 

I stood there for a long time, quickly falling into a small existential crisis as I thought about what Logan had said. 

Needless to say, I let him continue studying the revolution. 

_ 5: Everyone is a genius at something. _

Logan, obviously, did extremely well in my class. He learned everything very quickly and almost always got 100% on any test that I gave them. But, every class has a best student, and a worst student. 

Well, I wouldn’t say “worst”, because this kid was so much fun to be around, and was a good friend to a lot of his classmates. But, he consistently struggled in class, and would receive the lowest score on his test. His name was Roman.

I mentioned him already a little earlier on. He was the twin brother of Remus, the kid who needed to move to learn. Once Remus started doing better in class, I considered the possibility that Roman might have been struggling for a similar reason, and also gave him some movement opportunities to see if it would help him in any way. 

But, it didn’t.

I was beginning to get a little worried about him, because he was getting increasingly frustrated with comprehending the things that we were learning, and now his brother was much better at him at it, and would tell him so  _ constantly _ . I ended up separating them to different tables permanently. 

Everyone is supposed to have their “best subject”. One area of learning that they do well at and enjoy, regardless of their more persistent struggle with the others. However, Roman just didn’t seem to have a best subject. English (reading and writing at a first grade level) was his  _ least worst  _ subject, so there was that. But, it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t intellectually strong in any of the subject areas. 

Sometimes we took our kids on field trips, and there was one time in particular that stuck out. We drove out to a bird sanctuary, to talk about wildlife preservation and the beauty of nature. One of the activities that we did was painting. The ladies that were our guides taught us how to make eco-friendly paint from crushed and watered down plants and fruits. We were going to paint a picture of the world around us, as they talked about finding beauty in what was already present, and all that. 

I wasn’t really that enthralled by their long, overly dramatic, emotional speech. But, the kids were really into it, so that was good, at least. 

We were about half an hour into our painting session, and I had chosen to take a break from my painting, and instead walk around and look at what all of the others were working on. There was a lot of what you would expect, with broccoli trees and birds with feet way too big for their body. You know, typical first grade art stuff. 

But then I passed Roman’s.

I think I literally froze. 

Roman was painting with the hand of a painter who’d practiced for years. His brush seemed to just glide across the canvas, perfectly filling in any gap with just the right thickness of line and just the right colour. He was painting a sunset, with small trees and a silhouette of a castle in front of it. Obviously, the painting wasn’t perfect. But the way he drew out his motions, experimented with mixing colours, how he figured out how to blend them, each individual shape being thought out… all coming from the hands of a boy whose height, when standing, didn’t even reach my hip?

It was unreal.

Roman seemed to realize that I was watching him, and he looked up at me from where he sat on the floor. “Hi, Mr. Sanders!” He said, his voice slightly hushed in the quietness of the room around us. Obviously students were whispering to each other, but it  _ was  _ only whispering, and normal voices could easily be heard over top of them. 

“Hi, Roman!” I grinned cheerily at him. “I was just admiring your painting.”

“You like it?”

“It’s beautiful.” I crouched down beside him. 

“Thanks.” Roman said, dipping his brush in the scarlet orange that he’d created, and continuing to layer the sky of his picture. “Things like math are really hard for me, but I find art really easy.” Roman said proudly, as he drew his brush across the canvas again. 

“You know, Roman…” I said, already deep in thought. “That’s just as reward-worthy.”

Roman smiled like he just saw fireworks for the first time. It brought tears to my eyes, actually. This little boy, who’d struggled all year with the things that everybody thought he needed to be good at, had found something that he was  _ amazing  _ at. No one before had told him that you can be a prodigy at something besides intellect and it be just as commendable. To be honest, I had never really thought about it before. But I do now. 

_ 6: Kids don’t see appearance. They see friends, and so should we. _

About halfway through the year, I got notice that I would have a new student joining my classroom. He went by Dee, and it was his first day of school  _ ever _ . His mother had been really hesitant about letting him come to school. When I met him for the first time, I didn’t even need to ask why she’d been worried. 

Dee had a large birthmark that covered the entire left side of his face. Not only that, but he had something called Heterochromia, which meant that his eyes were different colours. His right eye was brown, and his other eye was so amber that it almost looked gold. It was like the two halves of his face belonged to different people, and they’d somehow fused to become one person.

I had met them down by the office on his first day, saying hello and introducing myself before offering to take Dee down to our classroom. Before he left, though, his mother pulled me aside, clearly a little scared and distraught. 

“Mr. Sanders, would you mind just keeping a little bit of an eye on him?” She said, eyes trailing to look at her son, who looked really excited to be here. “I’ve done my best to shelter him from judgement, and he doesn’t expect anything to go wrong… But, I’m just a little worried about what the other kids will say.”

I nodded. “I will. But I assure you, all of his classmates are good kids. They’re all wonderful.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She said, but her expression was skeptical. “But, children also don’t have much of a filter. They could say something that hurts him without meaning it.”

“I’ll make sure to check in.” I said. 

“Thank you.”

So, I kept a careful watch over Dee for the rest of the day, especially when he went over to say hello to Remus, who never seemed to have any kind of filter and would spout any random thought that crossed his mind. But, for the whole day, not one of the other students mentioned Dee’s physical appearance. No one even gave him a second glance. Not that day, or the day after that, or the day after that. He was accepted into the group immediately, and always had tons of offers from people to sit with at lunch. 

The only people whose eyes lingered were the adults. The teachers, the other parents. They frowned and whispered under their breath to each other when Dee passed.

Even though their children saw past his deformities. Or, they never saw them at all. 

I tried to pay attention to when I was being judgemental, and tried to live life blind as much as I could after that. 

_ 7: We need individuals in order to make a stronger group.  _

I had all of my students to a year-end project in groups of six. Because it was the end of the year, I’d finally allowed them to pick their own groups. Of course, Logan and Virgil immediately reached for each other, and so did Remus and Dee. Patton was friends with everyone, so he was the one who pulled in Roman and told the other two pairs that they should work together. 

I honestly have to say that I was a little doubtful about how well that group would work. All of the others were made of groups of friends, all people with the same interests and worked similarly with each other. This group… well I couldn’t say the same. Logan was analytical and liked to do things sensibly, Roman wanted to add as much glitter as possible, Dee would rather that they didn’t have to do this at all, Remus wanted to do the  _ exact opposite  _ of what Logan told him to do, Virgil wanted everyone to just stop talking for  _ one second _ , and Patton wanted everyone to just be friends. 

So, when they went up to the front of the room to present, I wasn’t holding out much hope. They fussed around for a moment, before Dee violently shushed all of them, and Roman stepped up for his opening monologue. 

They’re project ended up being the most entertaining in the whole room. It was colourful, exciting, and each moment was a little quirky and unexpected. Because of the diversity of the cast, there were moments in it where everyone could connect to it. They each had their own element that helped build up to an iridescent and strong whole. 

Their individuality was what made the group as well oiled as it was. It was interesting and dynamic. They all played their own part, each reminding me of everything that they’d taught me throughout the course of the year. 

_ After only one year, I’ve already learned so many things about myself and about life from kids who don’t even know how to spell those words. Without knowing it, they taught me lessons that I think most adults aren’t even aware that they needed to know. But, of course, they taught me one thing that sticks out above all else, and that I just can’t stress enough: _

_ Teaching is the best job in the world. _


End file.
